archon-maenad - Tumblr blog

[archon-maenad]

hi i love your taylor uzumaki au

I've been so busy with real life issues that I haven't done anything creative for weeks, let alone interacted with this blog, but seeing the notif for this ask in my email reminded me how fulfilling it is to see people enjoy my ideas. thank you 💖

[archon-maenad]

That feel when I found your blog like half an hour ago and have immediately become absolutely obsessed with your taylor uzumaki au and more generally with your stellar takes on earth bet’s cultural traumas and practices

irl has been kicking my ass so honestly opening my inbox to find this message just made like my whole month. thank you so much 💖

[archon-maenad]

love your posts and excited to see what analysis you'll make after reading worm!

this was very sweet thank you so much!!!!

[archon-maenad]

this was so politely written, to anyone bringing up points about my posts re: me not having read worm, this is how you do it! I can confirm that I shall soon be clawing my out of the worm lore uncanny valley into the light (and yes, might liveblog it).

wake up babe new thought exercise just dropped! if worm characters became protagonists of slay the princess how would each of them shape said princess with their thought patterns?

this could be done with characters from any fandom really, but I came up with the idea from imagining taylor hebert reacting to being told that "there's a world ending threat in the basement over there can you please kill it thanks!" with absolutely no evidence to back it up.

girlie would be suspicious as hell about everything, from the situation to the narrator to the voice of the hero. but she wouldn't dip from this premise because she's taylor hebert (don't think I need to elaborate on that point).

she'd take the knife because better to have and not need and all, and would come face-to-face in that basement with a cynical manipulative bitch. the narrator's warning about the princess' scheming nature ironically enough ensured she'd be someone tay would never underestimate, since the blend of "pretty primadonna at the top of a hierarchy" and "prone to lying to get her way without a care for who gets hurt" obviously reminds her of emma.

the narrator is very happy that his protagonist refuses to trust the princess. the narrator is very unhappy that his protagonist believes the princess to be the most insidious kind of dangerous.

I think taylor would end up on the adversary route. she fully believes herself able to defeat the princess because tay knows she is ruthless and strong enough, but without her bugs or even armor her mortality is stark in her mind. so when she decides to kill the princess it ends up with both of them dead after an actual fight.

meanwhile lisa, and rachel, and a lot of characters probably, would end up on the stranger route by nopeing right the fuck outta the situation and continuing even after the narrator turns them back around towards the princess. lisa because she can tell it's making the narrator annoyed even as he tries to hide it, and rachel because she's plain stubborn. since you only need to turn around three times they wouldn't give up before going to the next chapter.

since the stranger is a railroaded path (the cheev you get from completing it literally references "the illusion of choice" lol) both of their following actions, while different, would still end up in the same place.

does anyone else have enough context for more interesting explorations of this concept? I'm caught up on the fact that pretty much every character from worm would take the blade, cause they come from a world where not carrying a weapon even if you don't plan to use it is a dumbass decision. and that cuts off half the paths available, admittedly making this less interesting.

[archon-maenad]

below the rm is my reply cause it got kinda lengthy oops.

(and to anyone raising eyebrows over a wormpinions post after my confession today, a) I can't not reply to a reblog like this that would be so rude! and b) this is much more stp than worm.)

to see the tower you have to give up in a fight with the princess and I think colin would rather eat glass than do that honestly. but it would be very funny to hear him argue with voice of the broken trying to convince him to sell his soul.

thorn you have to give the witch your knife and I... genuinely cannot think of a worm character who would do that off the top of my head. naivety dies swiftly in that world.

and the fun thing about the razor is that going from purely the game mechanics a ton of people would get that ending checking the body, but in the story I'm pretty sure the key to it was the protag and hero actually arguing with the narrator and doubting her death. all the buildup of "should we check for a pulse?" was the clincher.

but someone who just automatically checks for a pulse, retrieves the weapon, maybe even goes for a cleaner more certain kill strike? they're not doing it out of fear, especially since she died so quickly. it's precaution as a habit. so I think that in the spirit of how the princess works they wouldn't trigger the razor route.

but getting razor cause they asked narrator if she had a weapon and specifically planned for it just in case? that is definitely more likely. could absolutely see someone like clockblocker asking going "ok are you SURE she's not armed?" and it biting them in the ass.

wake up babe new thought exercise just dropped! if worm characters became protagonists of slay the princess how would each of them shape said princess with their thought patterns?

this could be done with characters from any fandom really, but I came up with the idea from imagining taylor hebert reacting to being told that "there's a world ending threat in the basement over there can you please kill it thanks!" with absolutely no evidence to back it up.

girlie would be suspicious as hell about everything, from the situation to the narrator to the voice of the hero. but she wouldn't dip from this premise because she's taylor hebert (don't think I need to elaborate on that point).

she'd take the knife because better to have and not need and all, and would come face-to-face in that basement with a cynical manipulative bitch. the narrator's warning about the princess' scheming nature ironically enough ensured she'd be someone tay would never underestimate, since the blend of "pretty primadonna at the top of a hierarchy" and "prone to lying to get her way without a care for who gets hurt" obviously reminds her of emma.

the narrator is very happy that his protagonist refuses to trust the princess. the narrator is very unhappy that his protagonist believes the princess to be the most insidious kind of dangerous.

I think taylor would end up on the adversary route. she fully believes herself able to defeat the princess because tay knows she is ruthless and strong enough, but without her bugs or even armor her mortality is stark in her mind. so when she decides to kill the princess it ends up with both of them dead after an actual fight.

meanwhile lisa, and rachel, and a lot of characters probably, would end up on the stranger route by nopeing right the fuck outta the situation and continuing even after the narrator turns them back around towards the princess. lisa because she can tell it's making the narrator annoyed even as he tries to hide it, and rachel because she's plain stubborn. since you only need to turn around three times they wouldn't give up before going to the next chapter.

since the stranger is a railroaded path (the cheev you get from completing it literally references "the illusion of choice" lol) both of their following actions, while different, would still end up in the same place.

does anyone else have enough context for more interesting explorations of this concept? I'm caught up on the fact that pretty much every character from worm would take the blade, cause they come from a world where not carrying a weapon even if you don't plan to use it is a dumbass decision. and that cuts off half the paths available, admittedly making this less interesting.

[archon-maenad]

this kind of feels like pulling teeth to ask (my anxiety is skyrocketing) but. if there are any posts of mine you remember wanting to respond to like that-- not like w the kill orders where you had salient points to how the concept translates irl but that like. are fundamentally giving "this person has never read worm." please tell me so that I can save them to revisit after reading the story.

I already pettily screenshot the person who just went back to respond to a post w "oh now I see why this was so bad it's bc you never read worm" because they didn't actually give me reasons and unsolicited criticism with no concrete points makes me annoyed so I am going to Revisit That someday. but I actually am asking for your pov and as embarrassing as it is I think it is good for my character development to not delete or ignore posts I can see now are bad (which is why my breathtakingly insensitive initial kill order take is still up).

I'm obvs not asking you to go thru my whole blog but like. if you remember something or see a post of mine in the future like that. I would rather know than endlessly wonder and second guess everything. show me the light 🌅

yknow I wrote out this whole post explaining why I don't often consume original media of what I post about and how worm isn't an outlier there, in a lot of unnecessary detail, and then realized I was just dancing around the point.

I am literally just not fucking emotionally strong enough to read worm. I am a lil bitch who cannot imagine actually having to follow in detail step-by-step the tragedy of taylor hebert.

but the problem is that I really want to read worm! because being on wormblr instead of just reading fanfic has like. shown me how deficient I am with the actual characters. I can write for hours about earth bet cultural trauma but when it comes to people I'd have so little if I wasn't consuming snippets and learning about smaller canonical moments via posts.

and I want to change that. I want to write actual literary analysis on worm as a story, not just worm as a world. but all my posts of the former can't match up to mine of the latter because I haven't read the source material!

so like. I should read worm on principle. I want to read worm. and I literally don't think I am emotionally sturdy enough to force myself to do it.

maybe I can start by just reading every chapter bonesaw is in or referenced. that way I can learn and write more about my favorite girl in a way that doubles as exposure therapy to the story.

(the fact this sounds viable says so much about all the ways my brain is broken lol)

[archon-maenad]

oh it absolutely is an icarus-flying-towards-sun sentiment. like 110%. and I've suddenly found myself caring enough about the posts I'm making that I want to redeem(?) them by not camouflaging as a fellow genuine worm-enjoyer but actually being one.

so uh. that's the rest of my holiday break planned out. my wings will be goop when I land, but I should be able to reach the ground.

yknow I wrote out this whole post explaining why I don't often consume original media of what I post about and how worm isn't an outlier there, in a lot of unnecessary detail, and then realized I was just dancing around the point.

I am literally just not fucking emotionally strong enough to read worm. I am a lil bitch who cannot imagine actually having to follow in detail step-by-step the tragedy of taylor hebert.

but the problem is that I really want to read worm! because being on wormblr instead of just reading fanfic has like. shown me how deficient I am with the actual characters. I can write for hours about earth bet cultural trauma but when it comes to people I'd have so little if I wasn't consuming snippets and learning about smaller canonical moments via posts.

and I want to change that. I want to write actual literary analysis on worm as a story, not just worm as a world. but all my posts of the former can't match up to mine of the latter because I haven't read the source material!

so like. I should read worm on principle. I want to read worm. and I literally don't think I am emotionally sturdy enough to force myself to do it.

maybe I can start by just reading every chapter bonesaw is in or referenced. that way I can learn and write more about my favorite girl in a way that doubles as exposure therapy to the story.

(the fact this sounds viable says so much about all the ways my brain is broken lol)

[archon-maenad]

1) yes I really am writing about earth bet's culture having never read worm. (I considered putting a disclaimer about that in my description but chickened out because people were actually reading my posts.) this is actually the norm for me I have 1200+ fics bookmarked about naruto and have never watched the show :)

2) no, we got "kill orders are great, actually" from my childhood feeling of alienation from the popular superhero genre's black-and-white morality which made kill orders a breath of fresh air. I had tunnel vision so bad on it that ngl it wasn't until you responded to my post that I actually thought about the concept in an irl perspective, bc in my mind kill orders did not exist as an idea outside of worlds with superpowers.

3) my impressions of the undersiders are... well it would be me regurgitating an amalgamation of your posts if I tried to summarize it. you were my gateway into wormblr and I toss a lot of drafts upon realizing I'm unconsciously copying you.

yknow I wrote out this whole post explaining why I don't often consume original media of what I post about and how worm isn't an outlier there, in a lot of unnecessary detail, and then realized I was just dancing around the point.

I am literally just not fucking emotionally strong enough to read worm. I am a lil bitch who cannot imagine actually having to follow in detail step-by-step the tragedy of taylor hebert.

but the problem is that I really want to read worm! because being on wormblr instead of just reading fanfic has like. shown me how deficient I am with the actual characters. I can write for hours about earth bet cultural trauma but when it comes to people I'd have so little if I wasn't consuming snippets and learning about smaller canonical moments via posts.

and I want to change that. I want to write actual literary analysis on worm as a story, not just worm as a world. but all my posts of the former can't match up to mine of the latter because I haven't read the source material!

so like. I should read worm on principle. I want to read worm. and I literally don't think I am emotionally sturdy enough to force myself to do it.

maybe I can start by just reading every chapter bonesaw is in or referenced. that way I can learn and write more about my favorite girl in a way that doubles as exposure therapy to the story.

(the fact this sounds viable says so much about all the ways my brain is broken lol)

[archon-maenad]

yknow I wrote out this whole post explaining why I don't often consume original media of what I post about and how worm isn't an outlier there, in a lot of unnecessary detail, and then realized I was just dancing around the point.

I am literally just not fucking emotionally strong enough to read worm. I am a lil bitch who cannot imagine actually having to follow in detail step-by-step the tragedy of taylor hebert.

but the problem is that I really want to read worm! because being on wormblr instead of just reading fanfic has like. shown me how deficient I am with the actual characters. I can write for hours about earth bet cultural trauma but when it comes to people I'd have so little if I wasn't consuming snippets and learning about smaller canonical moments via posts.

and I want to change that. I want to write actual literary analysis on worm as a story, not just worm as a world. but all my posts of the former can't match up to mine of the latter because I haven't read the source material!

so like. I should read worm on principle. I want to read worm. and I literally don't think I am emotionally sturdy enough to force myself to do it.

maybe I can start by just reading every chapter bonesaw is in or referenced. that way I can learn and write more about my favorite girl in a way that doubles as exposure therapy to the story.

(the fact this sounds viable says so much about all the ways my brain is broken lol)

[archon-maenad]

wake up babe new thought exercise just dropped! if worm characters became protagonists of slay the princess how would each of them shape said princess with their thought patterns?

this could be done with characters from any fandom really, but I came up with the idea from imagining taylor hebert reacting to being told that "there's a world ending threat in the basement over there can you please kill it thanks!" with absolutely no evidence to back it up.

girlie would be suspicious as hell about everything, from the situation to the narrator to the voice of the hero. but she wouldn't dip from this premise because she's taylor hebert (don't think I need to elaborate on that point).

she'd take the knife because better to have and not need and all, and would come face-to-face in that basement with a cynical manipulative bitch. the narrator's warning about the princess' scheming nature ironically enough ensured she'd be someone tay would never underestimate, since the blend of "pretty primadonna at the top of a hierarchy" and "prone to lying to get her way without a care for who gets hurt" obviously reminds her of emma.

the narrator is very happy that his protagonist refuses to trust the princess. the narrator is very unhappy that his protagonist believes the princess to be the most insidious kind of dangerous.

I think taylor would end up on the adversary route. she fully believes herself able to defeat the princess because tay knows she is ruthless and strong enough, but without her bugs or even armor her mortality is stark in her mind. so when she decides to kill the princess it ends up with both of them dead after an actual fight.

meanwhile lisa, and rachel, and a lot of characters probably, would end up on the stranger route by nopeing right the fuck outta the situation and continuing even after the narrator turns them back around towards the princess. lisa because she can tell it's making the narrator annoyed even as he tries to hide it, and rachel because she's plain stubborn. since you only need to turn around three times they wouldn't give up before going to the next chapter.

since the stranger is a railroaded path (the cheev you get from completing it literally references "the illusion of choice" lol) both of their following actions, while different, would still end up in the same place.

does anyone else have enough context for more interesting explorations of this concept? I'm caught up on the fact that pretty much every character from worm would take the blade, cause they come from a world where not carrying a weapon even if you don't plan to use it is a dumbass decision. and that cuts off half the paths available, admittedly making this less interesting.

[archon-maenad]

"end-boss dropped in their lap as the tutorial closer" is a fantastic way to put it. same with that last line, it really highlights just how overwhelming and sudden things must have been.

fortuna accidentally clipped into the cutscene introducing the final bosses with only a starting weapon and she just had to roll with it. girlie managed to kill one with a lucky crit and immediately dumped all her points into the crafting perk tree so she could harvest the corpse for high level enchantments, and then she made all those "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" any% runners proud as she went through the main quest. what an icon.

cauldron's status as an ostensibly heroic organization was held together by denial and duct tape, but bless their hearts they were trying so hard.

they exemplified a lot of humanity's flaws, like our tendency to always rationalize our own actions and the corruption of power and "means always justify the ends" mindset. but they also are the epitome of our refusal to die quietly.

cauldron knew they would be lucky to give scion a papercut. logic dictates that they should give up, funneling their resources into building an rocket to try and abandon earth or just living out the rest of their time in luxury and hedonism and escapism.

humans have never been creatures of logic before emotion though. cauldron poured everything, time and dreams and morals and souls, into fighting a losing battle. because the other option was to go meekly to their deaths and Fuck That Noise.

honestly? I can vibe with that. cauldron has a lot of flaws, both logical and ethical, but I think they got the spirit.

[archon-maenad]

cauldron's status as an ostensibly heroic organization was held together by denial and duct tape, but bless their hearts they were trying so hard.

they exemplified a lot of humanity's flaws, like our tendency to always rationalize our own actions and the corruption of power and "means always justify the ends" mindset. but they also are the epitome of our refusal to die quietly.

cauldron knew they would be lucky to give scion a papercut. logic dictates that they should give up, funneling their resources into building an rocket to try and abandon earth or just living out the rest of their time in luxury and hedonism and escapism.

humans have never been creatures of logic before emotion though. cauldron poured everything, time and dreams and morals and souls, into fighting a losing battle. because the other option was to go meekly to their deaths and Fuck That Noise.

honestly? I can vibe with that. cauldron has a lot of flaws, both logical and ethical, but I think they got the spirit.

[archon-maenad]

every single day I send a prayer up above for umei no mai to write another naruto fanfic 🙏 I would do the same for worm, but umei reading the parahumans series and deciding they want to write about it is an absolutely terrifying idea.

so many stories would be ruined forever if they got their teeth into earth bet. it would change my life. I'd probably delete half my betpinions posts out of sheer embarrassment after having their worldbuilding show me all the ways I was a fool.

so for now I'll stick to crossing my fingers that umei re-finds naruto inspiration while hiding worm under the fridge away from the scalpels that they would use to dissect it.

[archon-maenad]

calling behemoth hero-killer feels like a diminishment of his deeds, with the epithet applicable to every other endbringer.

leviathan's title is also shallow in retrospect. they couldn't have known it at the time, but he should have been called the country-killer.

meanwhile, the simurgh... well. the simurgh, if nothing else, lives up to the designation of hope-killer.

I'd argue that earth bet was a world without hope before she came along. but there is a difference between hope dying slowly, fading day-by-day, and hope being killed.

behee and levi were doing the former, squeezing the life out of civilization one attack at a time. but simmy was pervasive, insidious, she turned heroes into monsters and made weapons out of innocents. where before the psychological damage was an effect of the harm done physically, the hope-killer struck at soul and mind and heart before anything else.

behee and levi left aftershocks that rippled through countries, attacks unable to be fully recovered from, but simmy's attacks never stopped. there was no rest period from her bombs, just an unending parade of tragedy.

the simurgh, unlike her siblings, wasn't content to let hope on earth bet slowly die. no, she killed it. she left safety and trust slain in her wake.

and yet humanity trudged on, adapting as best they could. the average person lives without the crushing weight of civilization's imminent collapse on their shoulders, through the powers of ignorance and denial either subconscious or willful.

the endbringers aren't everyday conversation. the discussions of their long-term repercussions was for academia or the incredibly pessimistic. it was something everyone vaguely knew but not many thought about, let alone actually emotionally internalized.

the simurgh and her siblings ground hope into dust under their heels. but instead of breaking down, most people simply decided to just Not Think About That.

and it fuckin worked! without scion I'm pretty sure earth bet would have had like, at least a decade more of time where people lived "normal" lives before panic and depression actually set in on a cultural level. holy shit. the power of just ignoring things you don't want to acknowledge is insane!

I'd like to think simmy was pouting up in space as she watched society adapt to the fact they had no future. she killed hope, and it didn't even phase your average citizen. gotta try harder than that girlie to drag us humans out of willful blindness to things that don't affect our own day-to-day lives!

earth bet really did the equivalent of looking at an article about some awful shit and saying "damn that sucks" before moving on with your day but for the fact their civilization was no longer sustainable. wild.

[archon-maenad]

umei no mai singlehandedly ruined me for almost every warring state's period naruto story about building konoha by actually doing so realistically. I'm going to make that your problem as well because I just can't stop myself anymore I need to scream about this.

I literally can't fucking comment on any fic involving the idea without feeling the need to preface it with an "ignoring the inherent unrealistic way you're portraying the village being built," which leads to me just not commenting at all because unsolicited criticism is rude. but every single story that even touches on the topic I can't read without all the flaws glaring out at me like neon signs.

it's just. it's so fucking stupid. it's so fucking stupid. people don't immediately change everything about their ways of life that easily. you don't just go from a ceasefire right into living together! other clans don't immediately jump on board! what the fuck!

in hindsight it's so obvious why konoha failed. hashirama put people who were killing each other not even a year ago together and forced them to coexist, then strongarmed all the other clans by virtue of the uchiha-senju alliance being so powerful that not joining would be a death sentence politically, economically, or literally.

in contrast umei no mai actually approached the idea realistically, the uchiha and senju weren't forced to abandon lives to live together from the get-go. konoha began as a trading town and neutral ground for centralization of mission offices that people could voluntarily move to.

this began to attract other clans not out of fear but with economical and safety incentives. uchiha and senju guarding konoha made it an attractive place to put your noncombatants. it being a trading hub meant tradespeople both civilian and clan would gravitate towards it for the opportunity.

and as the wounds of grief were given time to heal, as senju and uchiha got used to spending time around each other as allies, they moved of their own accord when they were ready. konoha was built on a foundation of people who were ready to believe in what it stood for, not those being forced to relocate from their ancestral grounds to an entire new way to life.

because of this, because of umei's beautiful worldbuilding about how konoha could have come to be, I now can't enjoy any fic that jumps right from ceasefire into a ton of clans joining together in a centralized village under the control of the senju and uchiha. it's just too fucking stupid.

I haven't even mentioned yet how konoha's canonical creation fucked with the entire balance of power in the elemental nations and forced the other countries to create their own villages in order to keep up, leading to warfare being fought on a countrywide scale instead of between single or smaller alliances of clans. because that is absolutely a thing that happened.

umei fixed that too of course, by not only having konoha be a civilian town which staved off a lot of potential conflict but also showing how using policing action would decisively resolve wars in a timely and less bloody manner. if one side is loudly proclaiming that they have dozens or hundreds of hostages they'd be willing to ransom as soon as y'all stop throwing that temper tantrum, citizens would pressure their leadership to make peace in order to get their loved ones back.

yeah lmao good luck waging war when your people are rioting in the streets over you throwing more soldiers into the meat grinder instead of signing a treaty to get back the ones still alive.

I'm not even going to touch on the political and economical repercussions of the bijuu, that's for another post. this one is about how konoha was doomed from the very start even ignoring how unrealistic the timeline and methods of it's creation were in the first place.

hashirama senju is an idiot and umei no mai has shown me the light. thank you for coming to my ted talk

[archon-maenad]

reading an umei no mai fic never fails to ruin me for everything else in the fandom.

it's not even in standards of writing or plot or characterization usually, because umei is definitely not the only author who shines in those categories. it's the worldbuilding. it's always the fucking worldbuilding.

umei no mai's worldbuilding is so fucking good that it makes me want to weep. every single time it opens my eyes and raises my standards too high, how am I supposed to read a story with a mediocre setting handwaving away plot holes ever again?

nothing can compare. it's agony. I love it.

[archon-maenad]

ik wildbow said aura-theory wasn't real, and while I do enjoy stories that handle the concept well I agree that it probably isn't to blame for amy's crush. (my belief is that she was adopted late enough that her brain didn't unconsciously mark victoria as familial so ofc her lesbian ass was attracted to a gorgeous girl.)

but consider: there ain't no damn way having your brain chemistry regularly played like a banjo during puberty doesn't affect your neurological development.

maybe it took a normal crush and heightened it with a feedback loop of chemical reinforcement, leaving amy unable to get over victoria and move on. maybe amy's brain literally got addicted to the aura from being in it's range while her brain was going through crucial neurological development. maybe it did both, maybe it did neither. but it sure as fuck did something.

hell, mark dallon's depression was probably affected by the aura in some way. even if maybe only on a temporary basis, because he wasn't subjected to it very often and his brain is fully developed. but amy's is not and she spent the majority of her time around her adopted sister.

yes amy dallon is a hot mess for a trillion other reasons but john c. mcrae is wildin if he thinks victoria's aura didn't affect that girl in some way.